Kristy and the Haunted Mansion
Kristy and the Haunted Mansion is the ninth book in The Baby-Sitter's Club Mystery series. Back Cover Summary Kristy and her all-star softball team, the Krashers, are coming home from a game when suddenly there's a huge storm. At first, the thunder and lightning is exciting. But soon it's raining so hard that Kristy's older brother can hardly drive their van. Then the bridges wash out, leaving Kristy and the kids stranded on a dark road. There are no phones in sight, everyone's wet and hungry, and the only place to stay looks... haunted. Will Kristy and the team survive a night in a spook house? Main Plot Kristy, Bart, and their Krashers baseball team are on their way home from a baseball game when a big storm occurs. While Charlie’s driving them, he misses the turn to head back to Stoneybrook & everyone finds themselves trapped on an unfamiliar road between two washed-out bridges. There is a large, spooky old house nearby and Kristy & Charlie knock on the door to the caretaker’s cottage to ask to use the telephone. The old man answers the door and tells them he doesn’t have a phone and the power’s out, but he agrees to let everyone stay the house overnight & he gives them blankets, flashlights, and a little bit of food. As everyone explores the house, it turns out to be quite cool. There is a lot of old-fashioned furniture, pictures, and even bells on the wall that were used to signal servants back in the olden days. Even though Kristy, Bart, Charlie, and the kids have a great time exploring the house, they’re creeped out of the fact that the house hasn’t been lived in for a long time, but there’s no dust or mustiness & the house appears to be well kept up. Jackie Rodowsky (after hearing a story from Shea about the house) is convinced that the house is haunted. When Kristy takes Karen and a Bashers player, Patty up to one of the bedrooms that caught their attention earlier, they discover a diary which belonged to a person named Dorothy Sawyer, who lived in the house until she was 18 years old. The diary ends the day before Dorothy had planned to run away and marry a man that her father didn’t approve of. They later find some newspaper articles that indicate that Dorothy never met up with her fiancee and was presumed drowned in a storm that occurred on that same day. They also find pictures of Will Blackburn, the man that Dorothy was supposed to marry and the kids think that the man looks quite familiar. The next day is nice & sunny; as the kids are getting ready to go home, Buddy Barrett finds out who Will Blackburn reminds him of; it’s the caretaker. When Kristy approaches the caretaker and calls him Mr. Blackburn, it is really him. Will never got over Dorothy’s death and he kept the house the way it was when she lived there. The BSC hosts a slumber party at the Brewer mansion to celebrate Kristy’s safe return home. Karen wanders in that evening and tells the girls that she can’t stop thinking about Dorothy. She took a picture of her from one of the photo albums that they looked at & Karen is convinced that Dorothy reminds her of somebody she knows. As the girls pass the photo around, Mary Anne recognizes Dorothy as the woman who owns the sewing shop she goes to. The next day, the girls & Karen go over to the sewing store to confirm it and the woman is in fact Dorothy Sawyer. Dorothy faked her own death because as much as she loved Will, she knew that she would have the same overprotected life as his wife that she’d have as her father’s daughter. Dorothy ended up spending her life traveling & doing things that she wanted to do, but she had been lonely. In the end, Dorothy decides to visit Will. Sub Plot Category:The Baby-Sitters Club series Category:Mystery books Category:Kristy books Category:Books